Facing content-inflation-slide-show

Online, everybody and their dog is a publisher. Some 700 million retailers, brand owners, corporate bloggers, media, and private users who want to reach online users as friends or as customers publish digital content. The resulting content explosion creates an intense competition for online visibility.

In their quest to be visible on line, publishers have no choice but to produce more and more spam-like content optimized to meet the ranking criteria of leading traffic gateways: the few traffic drivers that dominate their category such as Google, Bing, the AppStore, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Amazon. This creates a rampant content inflation, a massive input of low-value-added content that worsens the content explosion. Optimized content can easily displace, and could even ultimately outgrow original content.

I show concrete examples of how pervasive ranking-optimized content is and how difficult it is to draw the line between optimization and straightforward spam. On the contrary, optimization blends in. We must learn to live with it – which for businesses means having a real content strategy.

The problem is that so many 'content publishers' are just throwing content into mainstream feeds that get lost in the noise.

I've found that having a target audience - whether that be the subscribers on your facebook page, your niche google+ circle, or your focused email list - this is as important as the content you share with your network/subscribers/fans.

I've also discovered that there is a very fine line between overwhelming your network/subscribers/fans and providing enough content to keep them coming back for more. Every niche is different.

My content curation and marketing strategy is constantly evolving based on watching others, testing, seeking feedback, and fighting the urge not to make it a sales message.

Transcript of "Facing content-inflation-slide-show"

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700 MILLION ONLINE PUBLISHERS ARE FORCED INTO (SOME FORM OF) SPAMMINGhttp://return-on-clicks.com

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AGENDA• Why publishers are forced to (sort of) spam• How they go about it• The resulting content inflation• Learning to live with it return-on-clicks.com, September 2011http://return-on-clicks.com

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1 IN 10 PEOPLE WW IS A PUBLISHER• 200 million Web sites• 170 million blogs• 1 million eBooks on the Kindle• 500 000 applications on the US AppStore return-on-clicks.com, September 2011http://return-on-clicks.com

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PRODUCING MORE AND MORE CONTENT15 billion new pages in Google’s index in 3 months Source: Worldwidewebsize.com 2011 return-on-clicks.com, September 2011http://return-on-clicks.com

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TOP RANKINGS TAKES IT ALL No traffic from gateways beyond the top rankings: • First pages 36,4% • Top 10 • Top 100 • Best sellers 8,9% 1,4% • Top news 1st position First page Second page on 1st page Average Click-Through Rates On Search Result Pages Source: Optify.net, April 20011 return-on-clicks.com, September 2011http://return-on-clicks.com

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Publish or Perish “If you want to remain top of mind you have to find a way to converse much more frequently than when you have big news.” A. Handley & C. Chapman, Content Rules, 2010http://return-on-clicks.com

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Ubiquitous Content Farming SEO changed the newsroom: “Almost all of our posts are written, or should be written with SEO in mind….” Quote from HuffPost. Sources: niemanlab.com, somescribblings.com, outspokenmedia.comhttp://return-on-clicks.com

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Too Frequent Updates Let’s make the list !  New  Last updated  Most recent  Top newshttp://return-on-clicks.com

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A VICIOUS GROWTH SPIRAL• The more “optimized” content, the less effective• The less effective it becomes, the more is produced return-on-clicks.com, September 2011http://return-on-clicks.com

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OUT OF CONTROLOptimized, ranking-driven content• outsmarts controls such as Panda• sucks up resources• stifles creativity• displaces and outgrows truly original content return-on-clicks.com, September 2011http://return-on-clicks.com